3 corners of a fulfilling life

Three key ingredients that make a life worth living : Dreams, Freedom and Happiness. As we get set to launch the book "Dream On" on our 3rd pillar (Dreams), we will complete the circle that we started almost 4 years back - with only one intent - to elevate lives around us....
Want to know how to streamline and balance your life? read on...

Are we really prepared to live our life?

Life is a beautiful journey. Yes, it indeed is.

William Purkey had once said:

“You've gotta dance like there's nobody watching,

Love like you'll never be hurt,

Sing like there's nobody listening,

And live like it's heaven on earth.”

Sometimes, i do get surprised to see how (un)prepared we are in our life to undertake this beautiful journey.

Lets create our own inspiring story

GOD made you and me with the same dedication, commitment, focus and HOPE as HE did for someone like Sir Edmund Hillary. This is also true for each and everyone around us. When HE created us, he did not create any difference, in terms of giving us the "freedom" to mold our own lives, live the life that we want to live, define our own path and to go and achieve our own goals and dreams.

We do trust GOD on this impartial commitment. Isn't it? Then, why is it that some of us are able to carve our names in the history books while some keep struggling for most part of their lives.

Life is a journey towards a destination

Nothing can be more true than the age old saying: "Life is a journey and not a destination". This saying is so relevant because if you have not enjoyed your journey of life, you are in for a hollow sense of achievement after you reach your destination. You will spend a major part of your life in the journey towards some of your goals and a minute fractional little in savoring the destination. Hence, it makes so much more sense to lay emphasis on the journey rather than the destination.

Well, if that is the fact, then why are we so hung up about

14 ways to know if you are stuck in the rat-race and 1 way to come out

Many of my friends and colleagues understand that they should not be in a Rat Race for the rest of their lives. But in most cases, confusion harbingers clarity. How would any of them know whether they are on the right path in their life or they are also a part of this dreaded and mindless rat race?

The irony is that most of them are in the rat race and don't even know this. If i tell them the fact on the face, no one is going to believe me. On the other hand, i am also shirking my duty as a friend if i am not letting them know that they are a part of this vicious circle which has no end. I want that they should have a fair opportunity to come out of this race. They will keep running throughout their life and in the end would not achieve anything substantial to be proud of. They ought to take decisions and do something different in their lives else the time is running out for them. They can make an impact on this world, it is just that they need to wake up to the fact that they are also a victim of how we were brought up in our society. They need to take charge of their lives before it is too late.

Faced with this dilemma, i thought of giving a list of symptoms of being stuck in a Rat Race. How do i know these symptoms? I have been through each one of them at some point in my life, and so i have a first hand experience. These symptoms will help anyone find out whether they are also running this meaningless race. So, here we go..

If you face one or more of the following situations in your personal or professional life, you are very likely running a Rat Race - a race which may not yield anything worthwhile in the end in spite of all the hard work you are putting in.

1. You work long hours at a job you are not truly passionate about.

You may have friends at your workplace, you may be able to work through your day happily but do you truly get charged up by thinking about what you do at your job everyday? Does each morning bring excitement to you when you think about your work? There is a very simple way to find out whether you are truly passionate about your work or not. Assume for a moment that you do not have any financial worries in your life. Would you still opt to go to your workplace everyday even if it does not pay you anything ? If the answer is No, then you are surely a victim of this social setup which trains you to be a rat in this rat race. You better try and find a mission of your life. You are working hard but you do not know where you are headed. It is just like driving a car at a great speed but don't know where to go. It is like paying any game with no target in mind, which would ensure victory. What will happen if you keep doing what you are doing today? You life will end up in frustration and you will not achieve anything meaningful. You will only regret at the end of your life.

2. You hate traffic.

You are one of those who spend at least an hour commuting to and from office. I often hear my colleagues cribbing about it, but they wont do anything other than cribbing. They never start thinking about what they can do to change the situation. They are all driven by situations.

3. You worry about the next day at office.

At the end of the day, you do not fancy cooking. You just want to have a drink or have a dinner and go to bed, because you have a planned set of activities for the next day. Your mind is planning for the next day as you go to bed. You have stopped finding happiness in smaller things in life.

4. Hobbies !! What are they?

You used to have a few hobbies, which you feel, are a thing of the past. You may say that you would revive them some day but nothing is going to change unless you change what you do on an everyday basis.  If you look at the last few years, you have just gone busier by the day. The competition at your workplace just got a little more, as you climbed a few corporate ladders. To climb further, it needs more of your time and energy. With all this, who has the time to pursue the old hobbies, which you have come to believe are only a children's forte.

5. You have stopped finding happiness in smaller things.

With all the hours that you and your spouse work, you have forgotten the habit of doing things together. The joy of making a meal together, the joy of watching the TV together, the joy of playing with the kids together, the joy of just chatting and spending time together - all these do not seem to have a great value in your life anymore.

6. The children are more a burden than joy.

Kids want your time, not the jazzy toys. They can happily play with a broken and a shabby toy if you are ready to spend your time with them. Instead, we go the other way. We do not have time for them though we have money and are ready to buy a new fancy toy for them. Sad, doesn't work that way at all. The equation just needs to be reversed.

7. You feel that you are becoming more and more alienated from your family.

Family vacations, once or twice a year, is the only family time you spend with the joy, assuming you do not carry your office mobile or laptop with you during the vacation. You deserve the same joy everyday in your life.

8. You believe in TGIF.

TGIF (Thank God Its Friday) has become synonymous to your Freedom today. The excitement,  energy and bliss that you get on Friday evening are some of the traits of what a financially free person experiences everyday in life. How good would that life be?

9. Your weekend just flies by.

Come the weekend, by the time you have fixed the dripping tap, cleaned the messy areas of your house, done the grocery shopping, watched the TV soaps, caught up on washing and ironing, dealt with the paperwork in preparedness for Monday morning's presentation at your workplace, your weekend has gone. As it happens every week, it turned out to be an anti climax. You have to now wait for the weekend once again for another 5 days.

10. You are always connected.

There is no escape either on the weekdays or the weekends from some thread at your workplace because the new technology ensures that you can be intruded in any part of the world at any time of the day or the night.

11. You never have enough money.

You earn good money but it never seems to be quite enough. There is always something extra to buy - for your spouse, for your kid or for your house. The bills just drill a bigger hole in your pocket every month. You are always waiting for the next salary credit in your bank account. Perhaps, if you changed jobs or got the promotion or worked something extra, it would have helped you meet your expenses. Sad, but you know that this change is not going to help. It has not helped till now and is not likely to work in future also.

12. You have a lifestyle (disease).

Though long working hours have brought in a nice car, a nice house and a nice overall lifestyle, it is very likely to also bring stress, and with it , all the lifestyle diseases. It has helped you stay ahead of your friends, both in lifestyle and lifestyle diseases.

13. You don't know how to effectively deal with the money you earn.

You are earning a lot, but you are not dealing with what you are earning. You always seem to be short of time to think on how to invest and manage your money wisely. Sad but true, you leave your family and your health to earn money but do not know what to do with the money you earned. Isn't it sad and ironical ?

14. Your gadgets are more a stress than help.

You have accrued a lot of modern gadgets, with the assumption that would at least bring some comfort to your life, if not happiness. They definitely did bring excitement for some time. But as your greed for the latest gadget went spiraling up, you see yourself spend most of your weekend time dealing with these gadgets and the issues that come with them.

Now, if you sit back and think through all of the above points, you might feel like you are on a hamster treadmill. You are running hard, very hard, just to stay at the same place. 

It is not necessary that you are experiencing all the above traits, but even if you are experiencing a few of them, you are a part of this race, which is self defeating.

You can continue to stay in this race as long as you want. It is a very comfortable zone, because you have got used to it. You can spend your entire life in this because that is what you see the colleagues around you doing. But in case you want your life to have a some meaning and do not want to regret at the end of your life, you need to come out of this race.

Financial Freedom provides one such way to come out of this race. I have shared my learning during my journey from rat race to financial freedom in a book with the same title. You will have to chart your own path and walk your own journey. You have to face your own challenges and you have to find your own ways to deal with your situations. But you can definitely reap the benefits from what i experienced and documented in the book.

Key is to take a decision and take the first step. Rest will follow. I wish you all the best

Cheers

Manoj Arora

"Giving" through Financial Freedom - The only proven path to True Happiness

Someone rightly said once : :Life need not be longer but bigger !!

I tried and analyzed that in this fast paced life with cut throat competition all around, what can make life bigger as well as longer at the same time?

From the time we are born to the time we live on this planet, we can theoretically divide the entire life span into 3 phases.

First Phase of Life is what i call as the "Wanting" Phase. This is the phase of life which is dominated by the feeling of "wanting" things, whether love or anything else that the world has to offer. For a typical human, this span lasts from 0 to 25 years or so. Starting form the childhood days till we have our own children, we are dominated by the wanting feeling. We want good friends, we want to play all the time, we want to buy or somehow get all the good things that we see around us, we want a good school, a good college, a good girl friend or a boyfriend, a good wife or husband, and then we want to have our own children... and it goes on. Does it mean that we stop "wanting" things after this phase of life? No, we never stop wanting.  But the dominance of this feeling typically goes down after this stage of life. When we "want" things and we get them, it gives us temporary happiness. It is just like the happiness a young one gets once he or she gets a new toy and soon the same toy becomes his reason for sorrow when it is either broken, stolen or lost. You might remember the happiness you got when you bought a new car that you wanted badly, and within a few months (or may be a year), you thought that some other more advanced car would give you more happiness.

The second phase is what i call as the "Becoming" phase.That is when you want to grow in your career or you want to expand your business and want your own company to "become" one of the biggest in its field. Typically from mid 20s till just before the retirement age, you either want to become something big in your organization or you want your own company to become a unique one in the world. That does not mean that you do not "want" things anymore in this phase of life but "becoming" definitely takes priority over "wanting". Some of you may relate to me when we long for "becoming" a senior manager from a manager or to get promoted to the next level relative to our peers. Nothing wrong with this. But did that promotion give us true happiness. It again gave us temporary happiness. We were happy and excited on the new promotion only till we got the congratulatory notes from our peers and friends. A day after that, the stress in the higher role started taking its toll over us. Sometimes, we look back to our career, how happy we were while we were in a junior role.

The third phase is the most critical phase of life from true happiness perspective. I call this as the "Giving" Phase. Typically, we see lot of people post retirement getting more inclined towards helping people and giving whatever bit of their life and money they have been left with. They also start realizing in this phase that they are not going to carry anything with them, so it is better to start giving. And do they need to search the takers ? The world is full of needy. If you feel you cant find one, open any newspaper or news channel and within 10 minutes, you will surely know where the needy are. This phase of "giving" is the only phase out of the three phases which gives you permanent happiness. The smile you bring on someone else' face either by giving money, by giving love or by giving your service brings that permanent feeling of happiness in you.

Though i attributed a few range of years to each phase, there is obviously no rule which governs this. It is upto each individual to decide when he or she wants to move from one phase to another. Some do not touch the 3rd phase ever and spend most of their lives in the first 2 phases only. There is no scarcity of examples in this area. Some reach the 3rd phase at a very young age whether you talk about Mother Teresa or any other great saint. There are more modern examples who have a balanced approach in all 3 phases of life. I can immediately remember people like Bill Gates, Azim Premji, Bill Clinton or other modern stalwarts who, now, after crossing the 2nd phase have started contributing to this society and the world immensely. This is what is giving them true happiness today.

So, it is up to you to decide when you want to shift gears from one phase to another but at least you know what will give you true happiness !! It becomes all the more easier to shift gears to the 3rd phase if you have attained financial freedom in your life. Financial Freedom is not an end by itself but could definitely be a means to achieve true happiness through "Giving". Not only Giving makes us live "bigger", the stress free lifestyle and internal true happiness makes us live longer as well !!

Live longer and bigger !!

Manoj Arora

Facebook : http://www.facebook.com/RatRaceToFinancialFreedom
Twitter : @manoj_216
Blog : http://ratrace2freedom.blogspot.in/

Do I need Freedom when life is going on just fine?

It was one of the typical chilly days in January month of the year. I was in US with my family. We were just about at dinner time when suddenly there is a family decision (typically family decisions means decisions taken by my wife and 2 lovely daughters) to go out to the Indian store about 3 miles from our house. Well, i did not get enough time or opportunity to repel against this decision and unwillingly, my hands automatically moved towards my car keys.

As we went along the small and beautiful drive from our house to the Indian Store, we saw shopping complexes and street shops on both sides of the road. This was Bentonville, a small laid back town in Arkansas state of USA. This was one place where we found lot of peace and relaxation after coming here from the neck breaking pace of a city like Delhi. Going to the India store in Bentonville was a weekly routine and it took us 5 to 7 minutes to reach there.

As we entered the store and got hold of our grocery trolley, kids had their routine fight on who will push the trolley and who will pick the grocery items from the store. While all this was going on, i suddenly happen to locate one of my office colleagues who looks stressed and drained out. He is done with his grocery collection from the store and is about to leave when we see each other face to face. Looking at his unusually stressed face, i am obviously curious to know if things are fine at his end. I end my curiosity by asking him about his well being.

Not wasting any time, he says "No, things are not fine". I go on to inquire further and he discloses some seriously disturbing facts. His father has been detected with a rare cancer in the last stage and the chances of his survival are not beyond a few months. Well, that would be a shocker of a news for anyone, especially if it is a sudden discovery. He goes on to say that his mother is also not keeping well and that he might have to travel back to India with his family soon.

His family (wife and kid) had just joined him in US. We had met together as families just a few weeks back. They are a beautiful couple and have an adorable 3 year old daughter. Moving the entire family back to India withing few months of settling in US in itself is quite a challenging move. But, in any case, these things dwarf out in front of the challenging family situation that stands tall in front of him.

The emotional setback apart, there is another thing that concerns this colleague and friend of mine. And that is obviously, the financial angle to the entire situation. He has got to fight for his fathers survival as long as he can, and this fight does not require any emotional moves. This requires "lots" of money. Chemo treatment, special medicines, doctors and hospital expenses, injections, movement of families from one country to another, unsettling and settling houses in each country etc etc. Health Insurance covers have an upper limit which easily gets crossed in such tricky situations. Going back to India would also mean that his income also goes down. His mind is majorly occupied thinking of all options to arrange for finances from somewhere so that he can look after his family in this time of crisis and provide the best possible medical treatment to his father.

Though he never expressed his financial need directly to me (we are close as families, i still happen to be his supervisor in office), it was coming out very obvious from his body language. Financial stress can be equally painful and disturbing, if not more, when compared to emotional stress that a person faces at such a stage of his or her life.

This is it !! This is THE point in life where you start valuing your Freedom (Financial). This is where you can take out your trump card. This is the point where you realize that financial freedom can be such a blessing in your life. It did not take me more than a split second to assure him that he can forget about all his financial worries and should focus on being with his family in India in this time of need. Could i have said this to anyone 5 years back..NO !!

Talking anything about whether he took any financial help from me or not would be completely missing the point here. The gush of bliss and satisfaction that i got after seeing his assured face in itself was so rewarding. How could i do that ? Why couldn't anyone else give him the same assurance as i gave. Not that anyone else was not willing or did not want to. It is just that everyone is so involved in the never ending struggle of their own lives that there is hardly and time and money left to give to someone else. This is one of those incidents which further strengthened my goal of financial freedom and made me believe that i am on the right path. This made me believe that i must not stay in mediocrity and must continue to find my way to freedom. This was reason enough for me to go through whatever pain is needed to be financially free.

So many of us are so comfortable in the situation where we are today. We are earning enough (or so we feel). We fail to come out of the comfort zone and achieve something of true significance in our lives. Rat Race becomes a part of life and Financial Freedom a mere wish.

Wake up ladies and gentlemen, there is a way to move to the other side. There is a way to move From Rat Race to Financial Freedom. You would never know when you would need it. If not you, someone close to you definitely needs it and you owe it to them.

Cheers !!

Manoj Arora

Facebook : http://www.facebook.com/RatRaceToFinancialFreedom
Twitter : @manoj_216
Blog : http://ratrace2freedom.blogspot.in/

Come out of slavery...Fight for your personal financial freedom

Financial Freedom.. a set of words as commonly used as these are misunderstood.

It is important to lay more emphasis on the word "freedom" first. So, if i ask you whether Freedom is important or not, well, we all know the default answer. Of-course it is important. Millions and millions across the globe have died for freedom of their country. It is "that" important. Well, you may be asking what a country's freedom has to do with Financial Freedom. I would say that financial Freedom is equally important, if not more.

While the freedom to our nation gives us the right to decide who governs us, gives us the right to take decisions in the overall interest of our country, Financial Freedom does the same thing when applied to one's own self... it gives us the right to decide who governs me - my job, my boss or myself. It gives us the right to take decisions as to what is more important for me, my family, my society rather than what is more important for my promotion next year. It gives me that freedom to make decisions and to do things i really wish i should have done in my life, things i really cherish doing..things that i truly enjoy doing...

This blog would post articles on a regular basis on some of the finer aspects of financial freedom as i get ready to launch my book in late September this year. Do let me know your suggestions and ideas. This book (as well as the achievement of financial freedom) was not only a dream for me but also i want to open the doors for some of you who are trapped in a rat race, but not knowing how to come out of it and lead a financially free life.

Trust me, its an amazing experience to be financially free !!

Feel free to invite your friends and let us debate and discuss openly on this very important aspect of our lives.

Have Hope.. and Dare to Dream !!

   When i was a child, I once heard a story of an experiment done with 2 mice... one enclosed in a black box and the other one enclosed in a similar black box but with just one change...the second box had a small hole for the light to enter. The mouse in first box survived for approx 2 days without food while the mouse in the second box survived for more than 5 days...!!

What made the difference... it was a very logical and a simple conclusion...the second mouse could always see some hope for freedom !!
This is what HOPE can do for you. Do not ever lose it. Have hope..have faith..things can change, things will change... "impossible" can be achieved... and can be achieved faster than what you think today !!

Along with hope, i am here to tell you that you must learn to Dream...and dream big !! The things that you dream of, have the potential to give you "true happiness", and if any of you are in the search of "true happiness", make sure that you have the inner strength to overcome all obstacles that come in the way of your dreams. Wake up and dream and then go and chase your dreams...."Dare to Dream".

I found that Financial Freedom is not a difficult goal to accomplish if you do not lose Hope and continue to have the belief that it can be achieved. Power it with your Dreams and there you go on the way...

Most if you have dreams, and i know that for a majority of us, this day to day rat-race is the only major hindrance in the fulfillment of those dreams. Financial Freedom can help you come out of this race....i can show you how...
Of course, it will not be easy..but will definitely be worth it !! for the ultimate result of moving "From Rat Race to Financial Freedom" is nothing less than fulfillment of your long cherished dreams !!

GO FOR IT !! YOU CAN DO IT !!

http://www.facebook.com/RatRaceToFinancialFreedom

Yes, Money can buy happiness :)

Last week, one of my Facebook friends (and my old time colleague in TCS) raised an interesting question on the FB poll that we were conducting. This question has been so often repeated in the Indian context of upbringing :
"Can money buy you happiness ??"
So, i thought of expressing my views to all my friends and why not start a discussion on this topic.

Like most of you, I have been brought up in a culture where traditionally money has been considered a "not so good" thing, if not bad.
It has been linked with most evils in the society today - whether it is crime, poor health or even the collapse of our own moral values. However, there is a different way to look at the entire situation.

Money, by itself, is a dead element - which cannot be either good or bad....let me give you a few examples - tell me whether a knife is good or bad, whether nuclear energy is good or bad. Most of us will have different opinions depending on how we look at all these dead elements. Knife can be used as our best friend in kitchen and can also be used to kill someone. Nuclear energy can supply electricity to millions or can destroy millions. Same applies to money. Money can be considered to be the reason for all evils in the society today or can also help in bringing millions of poor out of the poverty line. It depends on how we use it.

Knife is not bad, it is the intent of the person holding the knife that can be bad. Nuclear Energy is not bad - it is the intent of the country holding the energy that can be bad. Money is not bad, it is the intent of the person possessing this money that can be bad.

Financial Freedom allows me to have the money and then use it with the right intent..to serve and help the millions who are suffering. How would you feed anyone else if your own plate is empty. Fill up your plate and fill it up a little more and then let it overflow to feed the millions starving across the world. The happiness that follows is unimaginable !!
Money can surely buy you happiness.

Get financially free to have a meaningful life !!

FB : http://www.facebook.com/RatRaceToFinancialFreedom
Twitter : @manoj_216